Google patents new gesture method

Google has patented a new way of using shortcuts from your smart phone. And it's pretty clever.

Here's how it works. You write a letter that you've assigned to go to a website or carry out a set action, then, without breaking the stroke, you draw a circle round the text or image you want to apply that action to, Pocketnow reports. So in the example above, if you wanted to look up some text on Wikipedia, you'd write the W, circle the text, and hey presto.

Similarly, drawing a G followed by circling would look up said text on Google. Makes sense.

It's certainly a step on from current gesture inputs. And it definitely beats a long press followed by selecting from a drop-down menu. That's provided it works, of course. Pocketnow raises the point that the phone might have difficulty distinguishing between drawing an I and scrolling down. So it's early days, but it looks interesting. And it could be implemented on the Jelly Bean build of Android when it rolls out this summer.